Expert Tips to Survive Seasonal Time Change

With one of the deadliest times of the year coming up in a couple of days, medical experts are attempting to provide us with advice that would make our lives easier during the dark times we’re about to face. I’m talking, of course, about the upcoming daylight savings.

Increasing the risk the risk of having a cardiovascular incident (hearty attack or ischemic stroke) by as much as eight percent, setting your clock an hour forward is just a bother for most of us. Falling asleep and waking up an hour earlier than usual can definitely be a drag, so here are some expert tips to survive seasonal time change.

Save your daylight

Meant to help us get the most that we can out of daytime, this year’s daylight savings will take place two days from now, on the 13th of March. This Sunday we’ll all be confused regarding how we’re supposed to set our clocks – or we would if we still had clocks that didn’t update themselves.

Still, if you do still have to update your time, you can do it with the help of the following play on words – “spring forward, fall back”. But even if you do manage to get the right time, you still have a lot to learn if you want to survive (or to function properly) during the two days following the nefarious event.

Doctor tips

Dr. Kelly Brown of the Vanderbilt Sleep Center was kind enough to share a few tips with us in order to make sure that we don’t go missing after springing our clocks forward. Some of them are quite intuitive, but seeing as they’re coming from a doctor, they should work just fine, shouldn’t they?

The doctor’s first tip is to go to bed earlier starting today – an hour, or even fifteen minutes if an hour is too much. If you have issues falling asleep, you can find some tips and tricks in the next section. The second tip would be to do all your physical activity in sunlight, as it suppresses the hormone that helps us fall asleep and lets you be more awake during the day – melatonin.

Falling asleep

Now, for those insomniacs among us, here are a few tips to help you fall asleep easier and hopefully not end up murdering someone when you haven’t yet had enough coffee. I’m going to start with the obvious ones, so make sure not consume caffeine, alcohol, or any hearty meals before going to bed.

Next, make sure you don’t have any errant sources of light in the room where you’re attempting to doze off, as even astray LED can disrupt your sleep. If you tend to be stressed out, save some time before going to bed for that specific activity, as it will help relieve the tension during attempted sleep.

Last but definitely not least, have a healthy relationship with your bed. I mean it. It’s very important how you feel about it. If you get angry because you can’t fall asleep, walk around or sit somewhere else. If you’re angry with your bed, the chances of you falling asleep decrease drastically. It also helps to occasionally cheat on it, either by changing your pillow, sleeping facing the opposite end, or even sleeping in a different bed once in a while.

About Marlene R. Litten

Marlene has always been a journalist at heart, though her wordsmithing capabilities helped her contribute to a multitude of blogs before finally settling for the online press. She strongly advocates for those treated unjustly and likes to cover US and World news.